Blogarithm

JUNE 14TH | Café Metropolis w/ The Marquees | Wilkes-Barre, PA

We hung around the Tomko’s aunt & uncles and ate some awesome breakfast (omelettes, French toast, seasoned potatoes) and some awesome lunch (burgers, hotdogs, thai peanut noodle salad, tuna mac salad, chicken drumsticks, etc.), and then piled our full bellies into the van to head back to Pennsylvania. I tried to pour an Emergen-C packet into my bottle of water right when the van hit a pothole…


We got to Café Metropolis, which looks like this from the front…


This from the back (which is the main entrance)…


And this from inside…







We played with a local band called The Marquees…



After the show we high-tailed it back to Aunt Donna’s for leftover pizza and burgers.

Seven Things That Represent The Members Of Our Band:


The Plaid O’ The Day®:


Cheers,
Steve | GAH

Bob Loblaw's Law Blog

JUNE 13TH | Day Off | Cooperstown, NY/New Jersey

We got the van back from the Ford dealer and were relieved to find out that the problem was very minor: When Mike got the oil changed in the van a couple weeks back, he had them change the air filter, too, and when they closed the air filter compartment, they pinched off the vacuum hose for the brakes. Simple fix, but a potentially scary situation.

We had no show for the day, so we figured we’d make a stop at Cooperstown on the way to Mike and Stephen’s aunt & uncle’s house in Jersey. While Eric H., Stephen, Ryan and Kiley walked around the quaint little NY town, Eric, Mike and I checked out the Baseball Hall of Fame.

There’s so much stuff to look at and read – you could literally spend an entire day in the museum – so I focused my camera on the things that mattered most… Cardinals history...
















He's Getting Close:


Awesome Cooperstown Bathroom Graffiti:

Scrawling 1: "ALFONSO SORIANO IS THE BEST GO CUBS!!!"
Scrawling 2: "haha he broke his wrist Go Cardinals"

Manufactured Dramatic Picture Of The Day:



We got into Jersey late, but the Tomko’s Aunt Donna had been sweet enough to not only stay up for us, but keep some authentic Jersey pizza warming for us in the oven. After checking out some kid pics of the Brothers Tomko, we went to bed.




Seven Things That Represent The Members Of Our Band:


The Plaid O’ The Day®:


Cheers,
Steve | GAH

Captain's Blog: Stardate 7734 (upside down on a calculator)

JUNE 12TH | The Bug Jar w/ The Show Is The Rainbow, UUVVWWZ | Rochester, NY
La Quinta w/ Beers | Buffalo, NY

Rise and shine in Erie, PA, and the merch spills out when we open the trailer. Should have been an obvious sign of things to come, but we weren’t looking for signs. We were looking for breakfast.


We had decided to head up to Niagra Falls on the way to Rochester, NY, so after breakfast we started on what would become quite an adventure. We got to the Canadian border, only to be redirected to the Canadian Customs immigration department for not having our passports (we had kinda sorta checked to see if we needed them or not, and the kinda sorta consensus was that we didn’t). At the immigration office we were informed that not only should we have registered all of our gear with U.S. Customs before coming to Canada, not all of us were “approved” to cross into Canada - more exclusive details on this in the Official GAH RFT Tour Diary®.

So after being declined by Canada, we were redirected back through U.S. Customs, who were significantly less polite than the Canadians. Go figure. Anyway, after 20 min. of having our van and trailer searched despite having paperwork stating that we never actually entered Canada, they sent us on our way.

As we approached a toll booth near Buffalo, Mike had the van brakes seize up on him and almost plowed into the car in front of us. We stopped at a gas station in Depew, NY to check it out, and decided to take it over to the service station next door.



We met Ernie and Johnny, the guys at FastTrack, who took a look at our brakes and determined that since we still had a warranty on the van, we should get it towed to a Ford dealer.




Mike called the Ford dealer, whose service shop was about to close for the day. Mike explained that we had a show in Rochester that we were trying to get to, but the guy on the phone told him they would look at it tomorrow, and depending on the problem, they might not be able to get a part in until Tuesday. Having no other choice, we called a tow truck to take it to the dealer. Mike rode along to drop the van off.



Ernie, being the nice guy that he is, gave Eric H. a ride to UHaul to see if they had a van that we could rent, only to find that they don’t have passenger vans. Ernie then drove Eric H. and I to the airport to try to rent a vehicle (or two), since we were still trying to make it to the show that night. After finding that almost every rental company had no available vehicles, we talked to Shannon at Enterprise, who told us she had no minivans, but if we could wait awhile, she could get us an SUV. At this point we had ruled out making it to the show, but an SUV could actually move the seven of us from the service station to a hotel, so we decided to go for it.

Meanwhile, back at the service station, Eric E., Ryan, Kiley, and Stephen had nothing but time on their hands. Boredom sets in…









A human snowman...


Herman the snail...


Ryan Archer Adams of Robin Hood's Merry Men...




Finally, Eric H. and I returned with our Chrysler Pacifica


We headed over to the Buffalo Brewpub for some hotwings. When in Buffalo…


Finally we got a room at the La Quinta down the street and put an end to a long, crazy day.
Our MVP Of The Day is shared between Ernie and Johnny at FastTrack, and Shannon and Kate at Enterprise. Thanks for your help, guys.

The Plaid O’ The Day®


Seven Things That Represent The Members Of Our Band:


Cheers,
Steve | GAH